I was looking at Machado's stats. He's actually better against RHP though not by some huge amount. He's 100 ops points better at home vs the road for whatever that's worth. His OBP is around .333 which is kind of pedestrian for guy that comes with that type of price tag.

If the Cubs could somehow throw Heyward’s contract into the mix, I could see Russell for Machado making some sort of sense. But there’s absolutely no way Heyward is waiving his NTC to go play in Baltimore.

Transmogrified Tiger wrote:Also, Machado is only a small upgrade over TLS with the bat against RHP, but that's a more minor point.

Considering TT posted it I'm assuming I'm missing a joke or the context of this statement, but......

What? Machado has a career .820 OPS against RHP. This year his OPS vs. RHP is 1.057

TLS career vs. RHP is .705 and this year he's at .713

Also, Machado, in nearly the same amount of playing time, has accrued just 2.7 fewer fWAR than Harper. Oh, and he's at 1.8 fWAR (like 9th in the majors) while Harper is at 1.0 right now (like 50th or something).

I think we are all underselling how good Machado is just because we all really really really want Bryce Harper instead. Getting Machado would not be a bad thing. He's really horsefeathering good and to pretend he's not is just foolish.

Machado broke out offensively in 2015, the same year TLS was traded to Chicago. Since then, LaStella has a .346 wOBA against RHP, Machado is .361.

Ultimately the point here isn’t so much about La Stella or Machado, it’s that the Cubs are so deep that they aren’t going to benefit very much from the positional flexibility that Machado(or any other target) provides.

champaignchris wrote:If the Cubs could somehow throw Heyward’s contract into the mix, I could see Russell for Machado making some sort of sense. But there’s absolutely no way Heyward is waiving his NTC to go play in Baltimore.

PackLandVA wrote:Lots of long post and analysis in the last few pages. Can someone just condense/summarize and tell me if I'm supposed to want the Cubs to trade Russell for Machado. Because I'm really confused.

That said, the Orioles are last in the AL is runs, BA, OBP, and SLG despite Machado slashing .344/.428/.606! How is that even possible? Unsurpringly, Machado leads the league with 7 IBB already. Trout led the AL in IBB last year with a grand total of 15. Machado is on pace to double that.

Whether or not the Cubs should trade for Machado is one question. I'm of the opinion that it's going to be awfully tough for the Cubs to make a package that makes enough sense (that is, the Cubs don't give up that much) for both sides to come to ... unless Peter Angelos steps in and impacts things. Also, Baltimore's front office is likely to undergo some upheaval this winter ... Brady Anderson is rumored to be the GM in waiting, so one wonders how that might impact any attempts at moves. Tbh, I half expect the Orioles to muck this up. I had no problem with them keeping Machado after 2016 (that is, for the 2017 season) - yes, you backed into a playoff bid, but you still got there and the aging core was stopping ... the idea was to hope that another winning season may spur Machado's loyalties a bit. They mucked it up by not dealing him at the deadline in 2017 (and the half-heated go for it trade for Hellickson), or this winter.

Theoretically, and with the Orioles FO you never know ... arguably the worst FO in baseball right now that lucked through this recent run largely due to star power and Showalter's pen management ... any Machado trade should be focused on getting at least one quality arm and one quality bat. They have a system that's shown some development, but is still struggling, but their numbers game on the pitching side is more names than quality (outside of Hunter Harvey, but he has the medical background. While I thought the Cubs wouldn't make a big deal last season, I admittedly was surprised when they doubled down and pushed in with Eloy. Still, it made sense. The Cubs doubling down now would be a package of Alzolay, Ademan, and ? It's not an imposing package. So, it would come down to putting in young players like Addison. Problem is, Addison is already on arb. Orioles rebuilding outlook suggests 3-4 years, and Addison would've reached FA already. It just doesn't make sense, unless they get an order from up top to try and maintain competitiveness.

There are so many teams that are likely to jump in that can offer talent. Philadelphia comes to mind (able to offer MI talent and pitching). Arizona could see a window and an offer of say WIdener/Chisholm/?? would be quite fascinating (I'm going to be surprised if Hazen offers Duplantier ... tbh, I wouldn't offer Chisholm, really like him). Any overachieving NL East team (Braves/Mets) could be a factor if they wanted to make a run, and there's the Cardinals/Brewers. Honestly, the team that I think might be the biggest threat are the Colorado Rockies. They could potentially offer a MLB shortstop with 3 years of arb left (Trevor Story ... who would fit in with the Orioles high strikeout, home run guys) and some of their 2nd tier prospects. A package of say, Story, Vilade, Castellani would be hard to top.

Duquette said today or yesterday, that they'd wait until after Memorial Day to decide what to do. And he pondered the question of "Do you trade a guy who may be having a Triple Crown Year?"

in today's day and age, I don't know how ANYONE can support the Orioles.

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davell wrote:Duquette said today or yesterday, that they'd wait until after Memorial Day to decide what to do. And he pondered the question of "Do you trade a guy who may be having a Triple Crown Year?"

in today's day and age, I don't know how ANYONE can support the Orioles.

Duquette is an idiot. No one really cares about the old-school Triple Crown title anymore. RBIs don't matter and teams know it's a pretty useless stat.

The Orioles will trade Machado -- I guarantee it. I just don't know when they'll pull the trigger. You think they'd get a larger return if they traded him earlier. I bet they trade him close to the trade deadline in July. I'm going to say he gets traded to Washington. I think Daniel Murphy moves over to 1B and Trea Turner slides over to 2B.

I could see the Dodgers trading for him too if they don't completely fall apart.

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